how the pandemic will usher in a carefree decade of decadence like the decade after the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918
Wouldn't that be... fun? (as I don't necessarily know that it'd be beneficial in the long term). Unfortunately, I'm of a more pessimistic bend, and can't help but think this is only the beginning of something much darker.
Since I, too, am a big fan of traveling the world, I've tried to get my fix, squeezing in small trips wherever I could. Yet even that, on some level, sickens me. We're becoming so grateful to be awarded even the slightest shred of what was once normality that we'll put up with anything for that one little crumb.
That would be pretty amazing and I suppose not impossible to imagine happening. History does run in fairly predictable cycles. I always wish I had been alive in the 20's when all of the American writers moved to Paris.
I know what you mean by being overly grateful for small things we once took for granted. Over this past summer all of the "firsts" felt incredible -- the first meal at a restaurant, the first visit to a mall (and I don't even like to shop), the first gathering with friends.
The post-truth era is tough, isn't it? It's difficult to trust anything when it's hard to discern what the truth is. I still think there's more good than bad in the world though. I think we'll get through this eventually but I think it'll be late 2022/early 2023 before anything close to what we used to consider "normal" returns.
Ah, me too. I went to Paris a few years back, looking to stay at Shakespeare and Company (which is a famous bookstore that housed the likes of Hemingway, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, and countless others). I didn't manage to stay there, but I did stay around long enough to understand that I can go to Paris, but I can't go back to Hemingway's time, regardless how hard I try, unfortunately. So it is what it is.
You are so right, you can't chase the ghosts of the past. When I was younger I tended to overly romanticize the past and missed out on a lot of things in present moment.